On a side note. I have been contacted by the folks at CalDigit and I will be receiving a S2VR Duo to evaluate and review. I am anxiously awaiting its arrival and can’t wait to test it. While I am a big fan of G-Raids and FW800, the future of media storage seems to be SATA connections and from what I can tell, CalDigit is emerging as the leader in this arena. It’ll be nice to see how they compare to my G-Raids.

Comments

Anonymous

December 9th, 2006 at 9:13 PM

CalDigit sure has some great looking products like the S2VR HD. Sonnet is also still in the game with their port multiplication card and Fusion 500P enclosures. Let us know how your CalDigit experience goes!!!

Anonymous

December 10th, 2006 at 2:32 AM

I’m also interested in hearing about your CalDigit experience, Shane. I’ve been leaning towards getting a Sonnet 4 port PCIe card for my Mac Pro, and probably the Fusion 500, but CalDigit has some equivalents, and I’m trying to get more info on how both Sonnet and CalDigit work in the Mac Pro.One thing I don’t like about CalDigit’s enclosures is that you have to load the drives from the back, which makes it a little less convenient for doing quick swaps.

Shane Ross

December 10th, 2006 at 10:30 AM

All you anonymous people!

If you don’t want to sign in (I understand not wanting to), please sign your post with your first name so I can address you personally. Please?

Back loading shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Just turn the drive around? Hmmm…then it is blowing the hot air at you. I have my desk arranged so that I can walk behind it and have easy access. But not all of you have that.

I too was also looking hard at the Fusion 500P, before I built my tower. Because I already had a controller card and would have to buy a new one for the port multlipication, AND the case. And I wasn’t flush with cash (still aren’t). But the fact that the CalDigit includes the controller card makes it a pretty attractive option.

Helmut

December 11th, 2006 at 12:51 AM

Hi Shane,Yea, I just don’t like the idea of having to turn a big piece of equipment around to get at the drives. Just seems a little unnecessary to me, if I have more elegant options available (like a Fusion).

BUt now that I continue to talk to other people who have set up RAIDs, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t go for an 8-drive case, which can grow to handle a big Raid 5 a bit better than a 5 drive case could.

We shall see…

-Helmut

Philip

December 14th, 2006 at 10:28 AM

Mmm….this is all great info guys. About to make the leap myself. Has anyone had any experience or heard any tales about the Granite Digital fanless cases?

maxplanar

December 14th, 2006 at 10:34 AM

Also – any thoughts on port multiplier equipped card with 2 internal/2 external versus 8-port. What are the downsides of PM cards and chasses?

maxplanar

December 14th, 2006 at 10:43 AM

And another question! (Jeez Shane, now I have to keep this shit up at the FCP forum AND here?!) Why did you choose RAID 3 (byte stripe+parity) over RAID 5 (block stripe+parity)? Do you see a performance difference?

Shane Ross

December 14th, 2006 at 7:47 PM

NO experience with the GD fanless models. Are the cases at lease aluminum? You need some sort of heat dissipation or you risk losing a drive.

Port multlipication allows you to connect more drives to your system. That is always a plus. I’d go for it if I wasn’t already invested in what I have. Who knows, I might even go for it in a future revision.

OH, and I opted for straight RAID-0. Couldn’t figure out how to RAID 3 or 5 the drives.

maxplanar

December 14th, 2006 at 9:55 PM

Yeah, the Granite Digital’s are literally fanless, they claim the gag is that it’s one giant heatsink and hence needs no fans. If it wasn’t for the fact it was GD, I’d be very sceptical, but I’ve had a long relationship with GD and they always, always have delivered the absolute most pro shit in the past. And on such is my faith in them based…but I still can find very few refererences to anyone using them.

Shane Ross

December 15th, 2006 at 5:48 AM

I have a G-Drive Q from G-Technology that is fanless. It is an aluminum casing with a large aluminum heat seak on the bottom. Works well. This is why I asked if the GD was aluminum.